Education Commons^™

The Dean’S Racial Justice Curriculum Challenge, S Civjan, Erin Baker, Samantha Wojda, Promise Mchenga, Nick Tooker, Esha Uddin, Hannah Wharton, Sophia Chang, Lia Ciemny, Jacqueline Thornton, Wayne Burleson, Paula Rees

Publications

This Work in Progress paper will present the College of Engineering Dean’s Racial Justice Curriculum Challenge. This challenge tasks all faculty in the college to use their engineering problem-solving skills to develop creative ways to incorporate issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and racial justice in every class we teach. The challenge was inspired by our students, who requested a greater connection between the technical content of classes and real world issues, in particular the role engineers play in either fostering inclusive solutions or contributing to the propagation of inequities. The intent is to engage faculty in the development of new …

Digital Storytelling With Refugee Youth: A Tool For Promoting Literacy And Youth Empowerment And A Catalyst For Social Action, Christina Chen

Master's Capstone Projects

For my master’s project in the International Education concentration, College of Education, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, I chose to conduct an action research project where I worked with refugee youth aged twelve to fourteen in Springfield, Massachusetts, to facilitate them in creating digital narratives about their lives and experiences coming to the United States. From November 2014 through March 2015, I recruited seven students to participate in a 22-hour workshop I facilitated over twelve weeks. During the workshop, they learned about digital storytelling, wrote their stories, and created multimedia videos of these narratives. They shared their digital stories with each …

Negotiating Invisibility: Addressing Lgbt Prejudice In China, Hong Kong, And Thailand, Hunter Gray

Master's Capstone Projects

This research serves as a consolidation of information regarding the global response to LGBT prejudice, and in particular, the response of organizations situated in China, Hong Kong, and Thailand. Interviews with activists and researchers from organizations that address LGBT prejudice served as the main form of data. Findings and subsequent analysis point to the ways in which organizations respond to the lack of visibility of the LGBT community, and how this invisibility is related to various manifestations of LGBT prejudice. Strategies that organizations have developed to respond to LGBT prejudice reveal how organizations negotiate contextual variables in their attempts to …

The Problem With Problem Identification In The Process Of Educational Reforms In The Kyrgyz Republic, Gulzat Kochorova

Master's Capstone Projects

The purpose of this paper is to expose issues that are being identified as ‘problems’ or ‘challenges’ of the Kyrgyz education in general, and of higher education in particular. Drawing on the specifics of the identified problems, this paper will also analyze theoretical assumptions upon which they are based. This is important because identified problems and their projected solutions are going to constitute further reform attempts, and ultimately shape the future of the educational system of the Kyrgyz Republic.

How The Chameleon Overcame Its Complex: Engage And The Formation Of A Prefigurative Social Movement, Philip W. Mangis

Master's Capstone Projects

U.S. students who participate in justice-oriented study abroad programs face great challenges reintegrating to life in the United States. In addition to working through culture shock, these students ultimately confront the dilemma of putting into practice a newfound transformed worldview that runs counter to hegemonic norms. Faced with the challenge of negotiating this dissonance, students can choose to blend in and conform to the status quo while struggling internally with their un-actualized perspective transformation – like a chameleon with a complex – or they can find ways to resist assimilation by acting on their transformation and taking action in the …

Understanding Educational Leadership In Northwest China, Matthew Militello, Joseph B. Berger

Center for International Education Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study is to develop greater depth of understanding regarding educational leadership development in the five northwestern provinces (Shaanxi, Yinjiang, Gansu, Qinghai, and Ningxia) of the People's Republic of China. The researchers used a mixed method approach of surveys and focused group interviews to gather data regarding the current state of educational leadership training in this under-developed region of China. Findings indicate that most of the educational leaders included in this study have limited teaching experience and relatively low levels of formal education and few, if any, opportunities for training and professional development. However, the participants express …

Civics And Citizenship Education In Schools In Afghanistan, Mohammad Tariq Habibyar

Master's Capstone Projects

This thesis focuses on the status of civics and citizenship education in schools in Afghanistan. My purpose for this study was (a) to understand what is taught about civics education in classrooms, (b) what concepts of civics education are addressed in the national curriculum and the text books, and (c) what role civics education plays in Afghan schools to produce productive citizens. My assumption is that schools have direct impact on civics understanding of the students and how they use their civics knowledge in everyday life. Civics education raises students’ political, governance, and social awareness and informs them about their …

How To Approach Institutional Partnerships Program From The Perspectives Of Socio-Cultural Differences In Management, Olga Okhlopkova

Master's Capstone Projects

The idea of developing an analysis of institutional partnership program for my Master’s thesis came to me last fall, 2003 when CIE team started working on a grant proposal for a partnership program between the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Yakutsk State University (Sakha, Russia). The project was initiated by the CIE professor Gretchen B. Rossman and a group of international students from the former Soviet Union

The project was developed by an open grant competition from Freedom Support educational Partnership Program with Eurasia. The FSEPP is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs. …

Kinsey Dialogue Series #2: Participatory Research And Action: Flower, Weed, Or Genetically Modified Monster?, Eileen Kane

Participatory Research & Practice

Over the last fifteen years I have been using participatory research in many areas, and especially to look at problems and opportunities for girls' education in developing countries. In this paper, I want to share some ideas about what I think needs to happen if participatory approaches are to grow and flourish in the future. The questions I am asking are, "what is participatory research? is it a sunflower, getting stronger as it pushes toward enlightenment? Is it kudzu, omnipresent and sometimes out of place? Is it a rootless creation, a carbuncle grafted on to the conventional trunk of research? …

Tractatus Pedagogico Peripateticus (The Walk Of Future Learning), Daniel James Macneil

Master's Capstone Projects

Our understanding of human learning has been greatly improved by recent research findings from the fields of cognitive science, neurobiology, organizational studies, anthropology, linguistics, and evolutionary psychology. Despite all that is known, however, the majority of formal schools in the world operate much as they did 50 years ago. The pedagogy and the structure of the educational experience still reflect industrial age assumptions that are increasingly anachronistic in the modern knowledge production economy and in the post-modern cultural arena. Given the paucity of examples, it is difficult to visualize the characteristics of a future learning society - a society that …

Proposal Writing: Issues And Procedures, With A Sample Proposal For A Women's Income Generation Project In The Gambia., Fatoumata Ayo Bayo Sidibe

Master's Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.

Doing Participatory Research: A Feminist Approach, Patricia Maguire

Participatory Research & Practice

Doing Participatory Research does not begin with a pretentious clarion call to action but with a personal narrative enclosing the sharp edge of her critique of male chauvinism in participatory research. As graduate students, we often see the inconsistencies in the theories and practices of the current generation of respected scholars and activists, but we rarely find the courage to own these criticisms fully. In Pat's case, she was astonished that the great "men" of participatory research could simply ignore women's voices while claiming universalist and humane values and liberationalist practices. She simply saw with a clear feminist eye that …

An Evaluation Of Non-Formal Education In Ecuador, Donald A. Swanson

Non-Formal Education

A logical place to begin this study was to list objectives from the original contract. The University of Massachusetts/USAID contract for this Project had some explicit objectives and contractual agreements are briefly outlined here so that we have a common background for discussing merits of this project. They are:

1. Create and field test a range of non-formal educational techniques using local institutions to implement and support these techniques in field situation.
2. Develop a number of non-formal educational methodologies which are feasible for use by existing Ecuadorean institutions.
3. Implement selected methodologies with institutions, including the Ministry of Education, with on-going evaluation …